NANO - 7527/52500
AND I AM DONE!!! WOOO!
Obviously it's a first draft. A very very rough incomplete first draft. But I finished Nano! Woohoo!
Annnnd my habit of having characters pop up near the end of a story continues...
“Pee pee! Pee pee!!” Ether flailed his arms frantically.
“Mom, I can’t find Hugo!”
“Did I give you enough money for gas and food and everything?” Scott shoved a piece of toast at Denise. “Here, eat.”
“Pee peeeee!”
The morning of the trip was chaotic to say the least. It was 5:30 AM and the car was mostly packed. After taking care of potty trips and missing stuffed animals and checking to make sure Trish had enough clean underwear in her duffel bag and there were snacks for the road, Denise and Scott collapsed with the kids in the living room for a quick family prayer.
“Well,” Scott said, looking as dazed as Denise felt. “This is it guys. You better be good and do everything mom says okay? If you bother her while she’s driving it’s dangerous and you could get in a crash, so obey right away!”
“Aye aye captain!” Trish said, saluting before folding her arms again. Ether echoed her inexpertly.
“I’ll say the prayer,” Scott said, glancing at Denise as if for permission. She smiled at him, and they all bowed their heads.
“Ether, close your eyes,” Trish whispered.
“Shh!” Ether pushed a finger against her mouth.
“Kids!” Scott hissed. They settled down and Scott bowed his head again. “Heavenly Father,” he said slowly. “We thank thee for this day, and for our family, and we ask thee to bless those who will be traveling today that they will be kept safe, that the vehicle will run properly and that no harm or accident will come upon them. Please keep them from all evil, temptation, and contention, so that they may return safely and the trip will be a positive experience. And please bless me also that I may be kept safe and be able to do my job well. We thank thee for our home and all the good things and people that we have around us….”
The minute they all said “amen,” Trish and Ether pounced on Scott with goodbye hugs and ran toward the door. Denise gave him a long hug and a goodbye kiss. “I’ll call you when we get to my parent’s house,” she said. “Have a good day at work okay?”
“Thanks. I love you.” Scott squeezed her hand, and she tried not to worry at how he looked worried.
“Love you too.”
He saw them out to the car, and helped buckle Ether in. He waved at them as they backed out under the dim November sky, and the kids waved back at him. Denise took a deep breath as they approached the White’s house.
Rivers answered the door, looking like he hadn’t slept in a few days. “Hey,” he croaked, and Denise pulled him into her arms.
“Are you ready to go?”
“Not really,” Rivers sighed, scratching his head. “I mean, I’ve got my stuff, but… I don’t really know where I wanna go. I don’t belong anywhere.”
“Dani!” Lee came up behind Rivers, burdened with bags while Sister White held a sleeping Ruth. “It’s so good to see you again!” She tried to hug her and Rivers but the bags got in the way.
“Here, let me take some of those,” Denise said, and carried them out to the car. It was tough finding space for everything, and Ether begged for apples, so Lee and Rivers were already ready to go by the time the car was all packed.
“Do you need to say goodbye to the Whites?” Denise asked, a bit flustered already for some reason. Lee was beaming.
“Nope, already did. I could use some help getting the car seat in though.”
“’kay Trish, into the front seat with you.”
“Lee, your costume was SO COOL,” Trish yelled, squirming her way into the front seat and nearly kicking Ether in the face.
Once they had Ruth buckled in, Denise went to sit down in the driver’s seat but Lee grabbed her arm.
“Hey, hey, hug!” Lee demanded, and they squeezed each other tight. Denise let out a long sigh into her hair, feeling a now-familiar sense of warm excitement and anxiety.
“I missed you.”
Rivers got into the back next to Ruth, and shut the door. Denise and Lee broke apart, grinned tentatively at each other for a moment, and then climbed into their respective seats on either side of Trish.
“On the road agaiiiin!” Lee sang, but stopped it there. They turned onto State Street and made idle chit-chat until they passed the second traffic light. Lee suddenly went quiet.
“Joshua’s buried in there,” Lee said, as they passed the flat grass and sparse trees of the Laverkin Cemetery. “I go visit him sometimes with Momsy and Pops. The other day I took Rivers. It was a nice day, huh Rivers?”
“Yeah,” Rivers said quietly.
“Do you want to go now?” Denise asked. “I can turn around.”
“Nah. We can go together when we get back, maybe.”
Rivers took a deep breath in the back seat as they sped down the hill and then back up against the curve of the creek, which was running high and muddy after last night’s rain. “So does anybody wanna tell me what exactly is going to happen to me now?”
“Well,” Denise said, pausing to focus on taking the curve slowly. “We’re going to figure it out on the way up. I know you might not want to go back to where you were living, or to your Dad’s.”
“I dunno.” Rivers sighed. “I’d miss you guys, but… I don’t know if I belong here either.” He rested his head against the window while Ether sang a disjointed version of Follow the Prophet.
“I don’t want you to go away,” Trish whined, twisting to look at Rivers over the back of the seat.
“We’re going to talk to Grandpa Wilson about what to do. Rivers, what does your dad know about all this?”
“You mean about my problem?” Rivers asked awkwardly. “Uhh. He knows I was teased about it… and he probably… feels the same way Scott does, I dunno. I never really talked to him about it because even just how he responded to me getting teased kinda… scared me, I guess. I don’t want to let him down. He’s done everything to keep the family together and….” Rivers trailed off, struggling.
“Grandpa Wilson is Rivers’ dad?” Trish gaped.
“Yep! Him and Scott are brothers,” Lee said. “So they have the same parents. Grandpa Wilson’s your Grandpa because he’s your dad’s dad.”
“Ohhhhh! I knew that! I just forgot. Mom can I watch Hugo on the tablet?”
“Sure. Rivers, can you get that? It’s in the pocket behind my seat.”
They passed through Toquerville and were on their way to Cedar City, passing fields and fields of sagebrush and juniper before Rivers finally got the movie set up so Trish could hear it. Once they passed through the college town and into the flat, slightly snowy fields of pale yellow grass and scattered blue-grey sage, Lee and Denise reminisced about their families.
“You had a butt-load of siblings didn’t you?” Lee asked.
“Yup. Still do.” Denise flashed a grin at her before changing lanes.
“I remember your little brothers but I don’t remember the older ones much.”
“Well, my oldest brother lives in California and is a web designer. He has five kids already. Went on a mission to Brazil. My oldest sister is a single mom with two kids and one on the way.”
“Ouch… that’s gotta be a tough life.”
“Yeah, and she’s had a really rough life so… she gets depressed a lot. She’s not really in the church anymore. She’s an amazing artist though.”
“That’s really sad. Dang.”
“Yeah. My other older brother does a lot of acting and singing and he draws cartoons. If he and Joshua had been the same age I think they would have gotten along real well, except my brother’s kind of overly flirty sometimes.”
“Maybe I should marry him and then we’d be related,” Lee laughed.
“That means you’d be my sister in law?” Trish asked, piping up from the back.
“Nope, it means I’d be your aunt!”
“Ohhhh okay. I knew that!”
“You remember Taylor?” asked Lee.
“Your sister? Yeah.”
“She’s working at the new Wal-Mart in Hurricane.”
“Oh wow….”
They drifted through topics for a while. They got out at Beaver for a bathroom break and the wind was like knives. They bought some Fritos for the kids and within another fifty miles, Trish was asleep against Lee and Ether had finally stopped singing in the back seat, while Lee furtively nursed Ruth under a blanket.
“Um. Denise?” Rivers’ voice startled her. “If I can figure out where my mom lives, can we go see her?”
“You mean you don’t know where she lives already?”
“Dad never told us where she went, but I think Shasta knows.” Shasta was Scott’s younger brother, one of two siblings between him and Rivers.
“Sure.” Denise adjusted her grip on the steering wheel. “Do you miss her?”
“Yeah.”
They passed a few mile markers and a semi truck. Rivers leaned forward so his head was just behind and to the left of Lee’s.
“If I’m gonna leave you guys I want to know I have a home somewhere. I’ve been fasting and praying for days asking God to tell me what to do and that’s the only thing that I’ve thought of.”
“Are you gonna be okay seeing her? I mean, after all this time, and I thought you were mad at her….”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Lee broke in.
“Did Rivers tell you about his mom?” Denise interrupted.
“Yeah,” said Lee. “We’ve been talking a lot the last couple of days, huh Rivers?”
“Yeah.” Rivers sighed quietly, still leaning forward. The wind made Denise wrestle with the steering wheel. “I feel like an abomination,” Rivers murmured, “but even though this last week has been awful, it’s been really good too. Just being with you two, it’s like I have a home again. You’re both like my mom. I mean, it’s like you’re both moms to me.”
Denise and Lee glanced at each other.
“Well you’re like the little brother or teenage son I’ve never had,” Lee said, grinning.
“Ditto,” said Denise, suddenly anxious again.
“I just want to live with you both and Trish and Ether,” Rivers sighed. “But not Scott. I mean, I would if he wanted me around, but he doesn’t.”
Denise lost herself in the hum of the car for a few minutes.
“We’ll figure something out,” said Lee. “Maybe I can smuggle you home with me and you can just pretend you went back to live with Shasta.”
“I don’t feel right about hiding things from Scott, though,” Denise managed to say. “I told him you were coming, Lee.”
“Oh. What did he say to that?”
“He seemed glad you were ‘moving on with your life.’”
“Hmm.” Lee sighed suddenly.
Denise wasn’t sure if she was imagining that the silence was tense or not. They passed Fillmore with the only noise being Ruth’s gurgling from her car seat.
“Hey Dani,” she said, and there was an unusual timidity to her voice. “Do you think there is something wrong with us?”
“What do you mean?” Denise’s pulse began to throb almost immediately.
“I mean, with us being so close?”
“I don’t know.” Denise felt like asking her to please not bring it up, but she stammered on instead. “I… I don’t… really know anymore, because I didn’t think there was, really, but then Scott said all those things and now I have to wonder if I’ve just been… you know…like… naïve or something.”
“He believes we’re gay for each other or something, right?” Lee grimaced.
Denise laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, something like that.” She tried to focus on the road. It was getting snowier the further north they got.
“You’d think he’d trust us to be able to tell the difference between friendship and romance, right?” Lee kept her tone amused. “It’s not like we want to make out or anything right?”
“Yeah,” Denise said shakily.
“We just are a weird kind of family,” Lee mused. “Do you think that’s what he’s really upset about? Because family is supposed to just be mom, dad, and kids? I heard in a Relief Society class that everybody’s supposed to love God most, then their spouse second, then their kids. So maybe we are wrong.”
“But you still love Joshua most right?”
“I dunno,” Lee confessed simply. “I love you more than anyone else who’s alive, Dani.”
Denise felt her face begin to burn, and then her eyes, and she tried not to panic as the road blurred.
“Well, you and Ruth,” Lee added sheepishly. “And Trish and Ether and Rivers come close. It’s hard to say. You’re all my family. I want you to be there with me in heaven, even though I want Joshua to be there too. I can’t help it. I know you love Scott most and that’s probably how it’s supposed to be, so I don’t mind. But I just can’t help loving you this much. And it doesn’t feel wrong. I prayed about it… you okay? What are we doing?” Lee’s voice suddenly went from warm murmuring to concerned.
Denise finished pulling over to the side of the road and rested her head against the steering wheel, fighting the tears. “Uggghhh I’m so sick of crying,” she groaned.
“Why are you sad?” Lee’s voice sounded hurt. “Did I say something?”
“Denise?” Rivers startled her again with his voice. He handed her some tissues.
“I’m fine,” Denise said, mostly to convince herself. She blew her nose. “Ugh,” she sniffed. “It’s alright for you, Lee, you don’t have anybody else, but Scott’s still with me and I still think… maybe I love you… more than I love him… just as a friend, but my feelings about you are so strong, it doesn’t matter that it’s just like a friend.”
The car was silent except for Trish stirring and mumbling something incomprehensible. Denise turned to look at Rivers who was staring at her with dismay.
“We’re all wrong,” he said shakily. “We all love the wrong people and want the wrong family.”
“But God brought us together for a reason,” Lee said firmly. “I believe that. Why else would he take Joshua home and put you in my life so soon afterward, Dani?”
“Maybe it was just a coincidence,” Denise muttered in despair.
“Don’t say that!” Lee never wavered. “Family’s not just blood, Dani. I mean, kids can be adopted into celestial families, right? We’re not just supposed to have families because ‘that’s just how it’s always been’. At least that’s what Joshua told me. The reason you have to have a family to get to the highest kingdom is because family teaches you how to love and sacrifice for one another and stuff like that!”
“I don’t know if that’s all there is to it,” Denise said hesitantly, even though she wanted to believe it. “Anyway what about Scott? I promised to stay with him forever. It’s not fair to him if I….” She trailed off, scared again by her own thoughts. If I leave him to be with you….
“It’s not your fault he’s not letting you include more people in your family,” said Lee. “What’s the point of being together forever with someone who doesn’t respect you? People make mistakes sometimes, Dani, even in the Church. I’m not saying you chose wrong when you chose Scott as your eternal companion. Maybe you two can still work it out. We don’t have to decide anything yet. But just don’t feel like it all has to be your fault. Family’s more than that.”
Denise was shivering and turned the heater up even though it was technically toasty in the car. “If two women could be eternal companions then the Church would say it’s alright for them to get married.”
“Why does it have to be a marriage thing? Why can’t it just be a family thing?”
“Well then they’d have a sealing ceremony for them.”
“Are you saying that only people you’re sealed to get to be important? What about friends? Aren’t they just as important as a spouse or kids? Aren’t we supposed to love everybody, Dani?”
Denise looked at Lee. Her streaked hair was curling slightly, and in the dim light it reminded her of the old days and the close-cropped dark curls of Lee’s younger self. “You’ve changed so much,” Denise said. “But you probably always had a big heart. I’m just not sure it works that way is all. If we’re supposed to be Gods and Goddesses, there can only be one God and Goddess per universe, right, so you have to run your own separate universe with Josh.”
“I’m sure God can make an exception and let us just share a universe,” Lee laughed.
“This is ridiculous,” Denise sighed. “I can’t believe I’m talking about this. I’m married! I’m not even gay!”
“If it’s not even okay for you and Lee to love each other if you’re not gay, how do you think I feel?” Rivers sounded dejected.
Denise clamped her mouth shut, more tears threatening to embarrass her.
“You’re fine, Rivers. I believe you’re the way God meant you to be. You want to know something?” Lee asked. “And this goes for you too, Danny-boy. I’ve been praying and fasting too, with Rivers. I just broke my fast this morning. I wanted to know if I should move away after all, and let you fix things with Scott. The more I tried to ask God if he wanted me to leave you, the more I felt blank or I had a bad feeling. The more I prayed about staying with you, finding some way to work it out so our families can be together, I felt a warm feeling and some of the strongest joy I’ve ever ever felt.”
“But what if you only felt that way because you’re in-because you love me?” Denise asked desperately.
“Dani!” Lee rolled her eyes and grumbled. “It says right there in the Doctrine and Covenants that that’s how you can tell! If it’s right, you get a burning in the bosom. If it’s wrong, you get a stupor of thought or a bad feeling. If I can’t trust the scriptures, what can I trust?”
“But the scriptures also say only a man a woman and their children can be a family.”
“Well the scriptures also say that with God there is no male or female.”
“I think that part was fixed by the Joseph Smith Translation, or it was just Paul’s opinion or something. And anyway, modern prophets say that the relationship between husband and wife is the most important relationship we have besides our relationship with God and our relationship with our kids.” Denise’s chest felt tight. “Modern revelation overrules old scriptures or at least, uh… is the final word when there’s contradictions.”
“Yeah well modern prophets also say that we should all pray about what they say and get a witness for ourselves that it’s true, and not just follow blindly. Our own revelation is the most important. That’s what Joshua taught me. If we don’t feel right about something then we have to keep praying until we know for sure what God wants us specifically to do! So that’s what I’m doing. What about you? What honestly feels right to you? Does it honestly feel wrong to you, how you feel about me? Because you have to get your own witness. I can’t just say ‘Hey God says we’re meant to be together’ and expect that to be enough.”
Denise groped for more tissues and Rivers gave her the box after taking some to blow his own nose, crying quietly. The whoosh of passing cars reminded Denise that the engine was still running.
“Okay,” she said shakily. “I don’t know, a lot of things feel right. It doesn’t feel wrong to me to love you. It does feel wrong to let Scott control everything, but is that just my own ego talking?”
“Well, just keep praying, and trust your feelings,” Lee said gently.
“Mom, why are you crying?” Trish asked sleepily from where she leaned against Lee.
“I’ll explain later,” Denise said with difficulty. “Lee, you want to drive for a while?”
“Oh.” Lee’s face fell. “Well… I would but… I haven’t driven since Joshua got in the accident….”
“Oh. Alright. It’s fine.” Denise wiped her eyes a few more times, blinked a few dozen, and turned her blinker on, watching for a good space to pull out onto the freeway.
“Mom?” Trish asked.
“Yes honey?” Denise’s voice wobbled as she pulled out jerkily onto the road.
“Are you going to tell me what gay means now?”
There was a long enough pause that Rivers answered first. “It means you want to kiss someone who is the same gender as you. So if you’re a girl and you want to kiss girls, or if you’re a boy and you want to kiss boys, you’re gay.” He cleared his throat to rid his voice of its wavering.
“Oh,” Trish said. “Is it bad?”
Denise and Lee looked helplessly at each other, and Denise saw Rivers’ sad eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“Mom?” Trish tried again when no one replied. “I said, is it bad?”
“Some people think so,” Denise said finally. “A lot of people in the church think so. But I don’t know. It’s not bad to be gay. But I don’t know if it’s bad to for a boy to kiss a boy or a girl to kiss a girl.”
“I think it’s bad to be gay,” Rivers muttered, making Denise’s stomach jump. “Because then you can’t marry the person you want to kiss. Only a man and a woman can get married, Trish. At least in Utah. In some places two boys or two girls can get married. But not a lot of places.”
“That’s d-d-dumb,” Trish yawned, and nuzzled back into Lee’s side, her face pressed between Lee’s shirt and Hugo’s furry side.
It wasn’t until they got to Nephi that Denise managed to stop wondering if she should have said something. “No, Trish, it’s not dumb, because the prophet says only a man and a woman can get married.” Something like that. Something that would have made peace with Scott, if he had been there. But Rivers was in the back seat, and Lee was beside her, and eventually the terrifying phrase I’m in love with you, Lee, faded from her mind as if it never were.
^^^^^
They got to Logan just in time for a late dinner, which seemed like a miracle due to the endless pit stops on the way to change diapers, buy snacks, get gas, find distractions from car sickness, and go to the bathroom. Denise’s dad met her at the door.
“How’s my girl?” He asked in his pleasantly gravelly voice, like the sound of someone’s tires rolling into the driveway when you’ve been missing them all day. His hug was warm, but so was the embrace of her willowy mother. The kids tackled them with hugs, and Denise introduced Lianne and Ruth.
“Oh I remember you!” Denise’s mother cried. “You grew up to be so beautiful! Look at you, your own little girl and everything!”
They seemed to hit it off right away. Lee and Denise’s mother talked happily about the baby, Joshua, and Lee’s conversion to the Church. Denise found herself relaxing in her family’s presence, watching with a kind of cautious happiness as her younger siblings Jacob and Annabelle played with Trish and Ether.
“You been listening to the election results?” her dad asked at dinner. “It’s was looking really good for Romney but Obama pulled ahead about an hour ago.”
Denise suddenly became aware of the TV buzzing with subdued excitement in the background. “Oh wow, I totally forgot today’s Election day.”
“I don’t even want to watch,” her mom said with that gritty undertone of aggravation. “Obama’s going to win and we’re going to lose all our freedoms while he drags the economy into the ground.”
“Don’t give up yet,” her dad said. “There’s still a chance!”
Denise felt a distant queasiness in her stomach. She hated politics, all the name-calling and blaming that went hand in hand with campaigning these days. She didn’t even want to try and form an opinion-the task seemed too daunting in the face of so much hatred on both sides. Still, surely the country would be in better hands with an LDS priesthood holder at the helm than someone who everyone around her criticized for making grand promises and breaking them.
Her wrestling with distant political questions didn’t last long, though. Rivers excused himself to use the internet, and called her in to show her his mom’s Facebook page that Shasta had just given him.
“She’s in a relationship with a woman,” Rivers said under his breath. Denise looked at the photo of two smiling women. It was easy to pick out which was Karen-Rivers and Scott both had her smile. Her relationship status said “In a relationship with Harriet Sandoval”. There wasn’t much else visible on the page, since Rivers wasn’t Facebook friends with her yet.
“Shasta gave me her address. It’s in Washington. She’s in Salt Lake for the holidays though.” Rivers looked at Denise, scared but hopeful. “Maybe she’s visiting her parents.”
“Did Shasta give you her phone number?”
“Yeah.” Rivers chewed his chapped lips and brought up a notepad file with the number on it. “I’m kinda scared to meet her. She’s probably completely different than who I think she is. She probably hates the church and everything.”
Later that night, after Obama had won and Denise’s parents and siblings had groaned and mourned and complained and worried for the future, and Denise had time to herself to worry about her own future, Lee was lying beside her on the air mattress her dad had blown up. Lee had her own bed made up on a hide-a-bed in the living room, but Lee came to say goodnight and laid down next to Denise, who was trying very hard to be comforted by a story in the Bible about an excruciatingly fat man being stabbed by a left-handed assassin.
“Whatcha reading?”
“The most disturbing Bible story ever,” Denise sighed. “I think I’d better just pick some of my favorite verses to read tonight instead.”
Lee squirmed up closer behind Denise so she could see, slinging her arm over Denise’s side and resting her head against Denise’s shoulder. “What’s so disturbing about it?”
“I’d rather not read it out loud,” Denise laughed weakly, and flipped her scriptures shut.
“Sorry for bible-bashing with you earlier,” Lee murmured. “I didn’t mean for it to be an argument.”
Denise stared into Lee’s eyes. She’d never looked at them this close before. “You know you have gold spots in your eyes?” she mumbled sleepily.
“Joshua called them my suns.” Lee grinned. “I told him my eyes are just honey brown. But really, Dani, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset.”
“You didn’t,” Denise said, hoping she wouldn’t get emotional again. “It’s just the situation. I’m so scared of myself lately. I feel like a rug has been pulled out from under me.”
“I’m here to catch you if you’ll let me,” Lee whispered.
“How did I….” Denise took a deep breath. “Somewhere along the line I’ve ended up falling in love with who you are… and I didn’t even realize it.”
“Hm,” went Lee, almost a laugh… a fond laugh. “We’ll be alright, Danny boy.” She kissed Denise’s cheek. “Goodnight.”
^^^^^
Denise couldn’t believe she was doing this.
She had left Ether and Trish with her parents for the day. Now she, Lee, Ruth, and Rivers, were sitting in temple square waiting to meet Rivers’ mother. Scott’s mother. Karen Humboldt, the lesbian.
That morning Denise had taken it upon herself to call Karen’s cell phone. It had taken her nearly ten minutes to stop agonizing over whether she would say something to offend her or possibly end up being traumatized herself if Karen turned out to be some bitter ex-Mormon drunk intent on slandering and blaspheming every sacred figure from here to kingdom come.
“Hi,” she had said to the inquiring voice on the other line. “Is this Karen?”
“Yes? Who’s this?”
“I’m Denise Wilson. I’m married to your son, Scott.”
“Oh.” There was a pause on the other end, during which Denise couldn’t keep herself from wondering if that “oh” was one of shock, disgust, pain, joyful surprise, or something else entirely. “Oh. How’d you get my number?”
“Rivers wanted to get back in touch with you, and Shasta gave him your number. He’s been staying with me and Scott the past month or so.”
“Oh. How is he? Is he okay?”
Denise felt herself start to relax. Karen seemed relatively normal. “He’s been a little depressed actually. He and Scott don’t get along very well these days, because Rivers… er, he has… he thinks he might suffer from same-sex attraction.”
“…And you said he wants to get back in touch with me?”
“Yes. He’s nervous, but he does want to.”
Karen had been surprised to hear that they were in Salt Lake, and even more that they knew she was.
“I came down for a Circling the Wagons Conference.”
“Oh? What kind of conference?”
“It’s for LGBTQ Mormons.”
“Sorry, what?” Denise didn’t understand the acronym.
“Gay Mormons, transgender Mormons, all that fun stuff.”
“Oh. That’s cool. I didn’t realize there were conferences for that.”
The rest of the conversation had gone on in similar awkward politeness as they discussed a meeting time and place. Karen hadn’t seemed a bit hesitant about meeting on temple square.
“Does this mean she’s still a member of the church?” Rivers asked, shivering as they stood by the flat reflective pool across from the granite-grey temple’s front steps. The mirror image of its three spires rippled ever so slightly in the chilly breeze.
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly a face which a moment ago had just been part of the crowd separated and came toward them, and Rivers straightened with a jerk. Lee shifted the bundle of Ruth to her other side, and Denise tentatively lifted a gloved hand. Karen waved back. She wore black ski pants and a dark blue northface jacket, her hair color hidden under a knit hat with ear flaps. She looked better than her Facebook picture, and as she approached Rivers she bit her lip, caught between a smile and a face about to crumple.
“Rivers?” she asked. “Oh my gosh, you’re so tall!”
“Hi mom,” Rivers said faintly, and she hugged him around the middle-she was a little shorter than Denise.
“I’ve missed you so much, it’s so good to see you again!”
“Y-eah,” Rivers said haltingly, hugging her back. Karen held onto him for a moment. Denise noticed another woman standing nearby, smiling, and suddenly she recognized her as the other half of Karen’s profile picture.
Karen pulled away after rocking slightly. “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe this. I’m just so glad to see you.”
Rivers looked cautious, as if he were holding himself back. Karen seemed to notice this and looked over at Denise and Lee. “Hi… which one of you is Denise?”
“That’s me,” Denise said, lifting a hand briefly again. “This is my friend Lianne and her baby Ruth.”
Karen burst out laughing unexpectedly, and Lianne and Denise exchanged an awkward glance.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry-that was rude of me. I just didn’t see the baby for a second, and I thought you meant the candy bar, Baby Ruth!”
Denise and Lee laughed too. Lee said “I didn’t even think of that!”
“Nice to meet you,” Karen chuckled, stealing glances ever few seconds at Rivers. She was fidgety, and turned halfway toward the other woman. “That’s Harriet, my partner. Would you like to meet her?”
“Yeah,” Rivers said thickly, and sniffed, fiddling with a lump of tissues from his coat pocket.
“HARRIET, come over here!”
Harriet’s face broke into a grin. She had long brown hair that was loose under a trendy knit hat with a buckle and a brim. She had fine lines on her face, showing the contrast of her age against the way her dark eyes shone as she came closer.
“Hello Rivers,” she said in a mild and comforting voice. Her movements were smooth and thoughtful to match as she held out a hand to him. “It’s good to finally meet you.”
“Y-yeah, you too,” Rivers grinned awkwardly and shook her hand, holding the tissues to his face with the other one. “Sorry, I’ve got a cold.”
“This is my son Scott’s wife, Denise, and her friend….”
“Lianne,” Lee said, shaking Harriet’s hand. “And this is my Baby Ruth,” she giggled, patting Ruth’s back.
“Baby Ruth,” Harriet said, and chuckled before turning to Karen. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to come over right away or not.”
“Well, I want to do whatever Rivers is most comfortable with,” Karen said, taking another wad of tissues from Rivers to dab under the frameless glasses Denise hadn’t noticed right away. “So, Rivers, do you want to talk alone for a while or should we all stay together…or something else? Whatever you want is fine with me.”
Rivers looked at Denise, asking silently for help, but she just smiled encouragingly at him, and he took a deep breath, eyes flicking between his mother’s sad smile and the majestic grey of the temple.
“Well, um,” Rivers said slowly. “I guess… yeah, can we walk around and talk ju…just you and me?” He sniffed, some hope coming back into his face. “Maybe we can meet up here in an hour or two and just um… decide what to do after that?”
“Sure.” Karen nodded, still seeming caught somewhere between joy and regret. “Denise, you can call me in an hour or I’ll call you if we decide to meet up before then.”
“Sounds good,” Denise said, and with one last encouraging smile at Rivers when he glanced over his shoulder, she watched them walk away under the christmas lights and leafless trees.
“Karen was so nervous on the way over here,” Harriet said serenely. “She kept saying she hopes Rivers will forgive her.”
“We don’t really know the whole story of what the divorce was like,” Lee said hesitantly.
“Yeah,” Denise sighed. “I have to admit that Rivers is probably just as nervous. He’s been told by his dad that Karen never really loved any of them, or believed in the church or anything.” She glanced at Harriet nervously.
Harriet just smiled a little. “Yes, I know. Karen told me all about how it happened. I’m sure you have a lot of questions about that.”
“Well,” Denise said sheepishly. “Uh. Kinda. Yeah.”
“You should know it was never a careless decision for her,” Harriet’s smile faded but didn’t vanish completely. It just became sad. “She agonized over it and even tried to work things out with her husband, but the one thing she couldn’t do was deny the truth of her orientation. And once that truth was out, the damage was done. Her husband and her kids felt lied to, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, that’s what Scott said-that she’s a liar and a fake,” Denise said quietly. “I don’t really want to believe it, but….”
“But?”
“But,” Denise said, amazed at herself for being so bold. “I don’t know why anyone would get married to someone they weren’t attracted to.”
“Heh.” Harriet stuck out her foot and looked at her shoe, first one, and then the other. It was an oddly childish gesture, but it didn’t look silly on her. “Doesn’t the Mormon church teach that God wants everyone to marry someone of the opposite sex in the temple, have children, and so on?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the only way anyone can have a fullness of joy, isn’t it? That’s the words Karen always uses: a fullness of joy.”
“Yeah. That’s the phrase. That’s what we’re taught.”
“Wouldn’t you want to do everything you could to have a fullness of joy? Especially since the Church back then taught that being gay is a choice. If you felt you had a choice, wouldn’t you choose to ignore your feelings for the same sex, try to hold them at bay-” Harriet held out her hands as if pushing something away from her. “And get married, because that’s the only way to be truly happy?”
“Of course. But then why leave?” Denise frowned.
“Because she realized she wasn’t happy after all,” Lee murmured suddenly.
Harriet nodded. “Exactly. If you did everything right but felt like you were living a lie, and you weren’t happy, what then?”
Denise exhaled slowly, her breath misting up to join the clouds. She was shaking inside again, but felt an odd peace beneath it all. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense, doesn’t it. But it sure hurt a lot of people, is all. It’s sad that things turned out that way.”
“Believe me… Karen still regrets that she hurt her family. But it was the original decision to not be true to herself that was a mistake, not her later decision to be honest.”
“But if she hadn’t, my husband would never have been born, and neither would Rivers,” Denise sighed.
Lee grinned. “So some good came out of it after all. Things are coming full circle.”
Denise felt something more than that, even, swelling in her. A gratitude for this conversation that was unrelated to the mere existence of Scott and Rivers but to how she could feel her heart shifting, a burden lifting ever so slightly from it now.
“I just hope he forgives her,” Harriet murmured to herself. “She’s had some very black days contemplating the past. Even a suicide attempt. She’s making peace now, so this is a good time for her to talk to him, if he’ll accept her. That conference we just went to was marvelous. You should check it out sometime. Circling the Wagons. There are so many stories of other people just like her, who are torn up inside because they truly wanted to live their religion. It’s not that Karen didn’t care about the church. It’s that she cared too much.”
Denise stared at the temple spires, imagining Karen in some lonely apartment somewhere, taking pills in shaking hands as she remembered all the betrayal in her husband’s and her children’s eyes. She thought of Scott, and the shaking got worse, but she tried to cling to the peace. It was alright now. Things were working out. God had it under control, for Karen, and for her.
“Sorry, I hope I’m not coming across as preachy,” Harriet mused. “I just thought it was important to understand.”
“No,” Denise said quietly. “No, it’s alright. Thank you. Actually… I really needed to hear that.”
“I’m really grateful you’re reaching out to Karen. It would be nice if Scott would, but I know these things take time.” Harriet’s face held hope-not a passionate or naïve belief, but a quiet steady hope-and Denise found herself admiring her. Maybe time was all it would take after all.
“It’s the least I could do for Rivers. I’m only just beginning to understand how difficult it must be to … feel like an outcast in the Church. I hope they can reconcile.”
“If we stay in contact, you’re all welcome to come to our wedding.” The corner of Harriet’s mouth quirked up.
“Oh. You’re getting marri-I mean… are you getting married or-sorry-”
Harriet looked amused. “Yes. We plan to. Three states just legalized marriage equality. We’ve talked about getting a domestic partnership for a few years, but when we saw Referendum 74 on the ballot, we decided to wait and see if we couldn’t get married for real instead.”
“Oh. Wow! Er, congratulations!” Denise said, feeling a little odd but not nearly as awkward as she would have expected. She honestly felt glad for Harriet and Karen. She had a lot of questions about how that would affect Karen’s relationship with the church, but she decided they could wait.
“Yeah, we’d be honored to come,” said Lee.
They walked around the temple grounds a bit, and when Denise and Lee wanted to go into the visitor’s center, Harriet politely excused herself to go get a cup of coffee, saying they could meet up later.
“Temple square is so pretty,” Lee sighed. “It’s nice to spend another day up here. Me and Joshua came the last two years around Christmas.”
The reverent atmosphere of the visitor’s center settled upon them as they walked slowly past the large paintings of scenes from Christ’s life. Lee paused on the one of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist.
“I have a copy of this one that Joshua gave me on my baptism day,” she said. “I need to dig it out of storage… I love this picture. All the blues and greens.”
They stopped on the painting of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, all dark greens and blacks, eyes upturned to heaven. Denise felt a lump in her throat coming on and was tempted to turn away. But the peaceful atmosphere soothed her enough. Christ had suffered for her precisely because human lives weren’t meant to be neat packages but glorious messes of mistakes and lessons learned. Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy. Karen fell that Scott and Rivers and all of Denise’s life could be as it had been, and somehow buried in that was a promise… they might have joy. And things worked out, somehow. Rivers and Karen were talking, hopefully healing some of the huge rifts in the Wilson family… in her family, however confusing and complicated that family had suddenly become.
As they walked upstairs to the giant white statue of Jesus, and Denise craned her head to see more of the colorful mural of galaxies, stars, and nebulas on the wall and ceiling, Lee began to hum to Ruth. After a moment Denise recognized it and laughed.
“Lee, it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet, and you’re humming Christmas songs!”
Lee grinned. “Sorry, I can’t help it! This place just makes me feel like Christmas.”
“Christmas,” Denise sighed. “I still don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“I’m not going to move. I feel pretty good about staying in Laverkin. I think it’s the right thing for me to do.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Do you think Rivers will live with his mom or go home with you or what?”
“I dunno. I’ll just let him decide, and whatever will be, will be.”
The tune Lee had been humming replayed in her mind, attaching the words.
“In the meadow we can build a snowman,” Denise sang under her breath, grabbing Lee’s hand and tugging her to follow. “And pretend that he is Parson Brown.”
“He’ll say ‘are you married?’ we’ll say ‘No, man! But you can do the job while you’re in town!” Lee grinned as they went downstairs.
“Later on, we’ll conspire!” Denise raised her voice as they headed for the doors.
“As we dream, by the fire!” Lee pulled her around and put a hand on her shoulder. Denise laughed as they danced inexpertly with Ruth snuggled against Lee’s neck, a sad imitation of the waltz, toward the doors.
“To face unafraid… the plans that we’ve made….”
“Walkin’ in a winter wonderland! Oh gosh, I want to build a snowman now!”
“We could build one right now!” Denise suggested, and they went outside to find a patch of deep snow. They took turns rolling their giant snowballs and holding Ruth, and they enlisted the help of some passers-by to hoist the layers on top of one another. By the time Rivers and Karen found them they had some sticks inserted for arms and some rocks for eyes, a leaf for a mouth, and a pinecone for a nose.
“Hey!” Denise said breathlessly as Rivers grinned at her creation. “How’d it go!”
“Good,” Rivers smiled shyly. “I feel a lot better now.”
“Me too,” Karen said quietly, and Denise saw her squeeze his hand.
Later, as they were all sitting in a pizza restaurant somewhere downtown as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Denise thought of Scott and another pang of anxiety hit her. She really didn’t know where she would go from here. But the words of the song replayed in her mind, and she knew things would work out somehow, if she just stayed honest. There was no plan yet, no roadmap laid out in front of her. Just her convictions, and her love for certain people. It was okay.
To face unafraid, the plans that we’ve made, walkin’ in a winter wonderland….
Obviously it's a first draft. A very very rough incomplete first draft. But I finished Nano! Woohoo!
Annnnd my habit of having characters pop up near the end of a story continues...
“Pee pee! Pee pee!!” Ether flailed his arms frantically.
“Mom, I can’t find Hugo!”
“Did I give you enough money for gas and food and everything?” Scott shoved a piece of toast at Denise. “Here, eat.”
“Pee peeeee!”
The morning of the trip was chaotic to say the least. It was 5:30 AM and the car was mostly packed. After taking care of potty trips and missing stuffed animals and checking to make sure Trish had enough clean underwear in her duffel bag and there were snacks for the road, Denise and Scott collapsed with the kids in the living room for a quick family prayer.
“Well,” Scott said, looking as dazed as Denise felt. “This is it guys. You better be good and do everything mom says okay? If you bother her while she’s driving it’s dangerous and you could get in a crash, so obey right away!”
“Aye aye captain!” Trish said, saluting before folding her arms again. Ether echoed her inexpertly.
“I’ll say the prayer,” Scott said, glancing at Denise as if for permission. She smiled at him, and they all bowed their heads.
“Ether, close your eyes,” Trish whispered.
“Shh!” Ether pushed a finger against her mouth.
“Kids!” Scott hissed. They settled down and Scott bowed his head again. “Heavenly Father,” he said slowly. “We thank thee for this day, and for our family, and we ask thee to bless those who will be traveling today that they will be kept safe, that the vehicle will run properly and that no harm or accident will come upon them. Please keep them from all evil, temptation, and contention, so that they may return safely and the trip will be a positive experience. And please bless me also that I may be kept safe and be able to do my job well. We thank thee for our home and all the good things and people that we have around us….”
The minute they all said “amen,” Trish and Ether pounced on Scott with goodbye hugs and ran toward the door. Denise gave him a long hug and a goodbye kiss. “I’ll call you when we get to my parent’s house,” she said. “Have a good day at work okay?”
“Thanks. I love you.” Scott squeezed her hand, and she tried not to worry at how he looked worried.
“Love you too.”
He saw them out to the car, and helped buckle Ether in. He waved at them as they backed out under the dim November sky, and the kids waved back at him. Denise took a deep breath as they approached the White’s house.
Rivers answered the door, looking like he hadn’t slept in a few days. “Hey,” he croaked, and Denise pulled him into her arms.
“Are you ready to go?”
“Not really,” Rivers sighed, scratching his head. “I mean, I’ve got my stuff, but… I don’t really know where I wanna go. I don’t belong anywhere.”
“Dani!” Lee came up behind Rivers, burdened with bags while Sister White held a sleeping Ruth. “It’s so good to see you again!” She tried to hug her and Rivers but the bags got in the way.
“Here, let me take some of those,” Denise said, and carried them out to the car. It was tough finding space for everything, and Ether begged for apples, so Lee and Rivers were already ready to go by the time the car was all packed.
“Do you need to say goodbye to the Whites?” Denise asked, a bit flustered already for some reason. Lee was beaming.
“Nope, already did. I could use some help getting the car seat in though.”
“’kay Trish, into the front seat with you.”
“Lee, your costume was SO COOL,” Trish yelled, squirming her way into the front seat and nearly kicking Ether in the face.
Once they had Ruth buckled in, Denise went to sit down in the driver’s seat but Lee grabbed her arm.
“Hey, hey, hug!” Lee demanded, and they squeezed each other tight. Denise let out a long sigh into her hair, feeling a now-familiar sense of warm excitement and anxiety.
“I missed you.”
Rivers got into the back next to Ruth, and shut the door. Denise and Lee broke apart, grinned tentatively at each other for a moment, and then climbed into their respective seats on either side of Trish.
“On the road agaiiiin!” Lee sang, but stopped it there. They turned onto State Street and made idle chit-chat until they passed the second traffic light. Lee suddenly went quiet.
“Joshua’s buried in there,” Lee said, as they passed the flat grass and sparse trees of the Laverkin Cemetery. “I go visit him sometimes with Momsy and Pops. The other day I took Rivers. It was a nice day, huh Rivers?”
“Yeah,” Rivers said quietly.
“Do you want to go now?” Denise asked. “I can turn around.”
“Nah. We can go together when we get back, maybe.”
Rivers took a deep breath in the back seat as they sped down the hill and then back up against the curve of the creek, which was running high and muddy after last night’s rain. “So does anybody wanna tell me what exactly is going to happen to me now?”
“Well,” Denise said, pausing to focus on taking the curve slowly. “We’re going to figure it out on the way up. I know you might not want to go back to where you were living, or to your Dad’s.”
“I dunno.” Rivers sighed. “I’d miss you guys, but… I don’t know if I belong here either.” He rested his head against the window while Ether sang a disjointed version of Follow the Prophet.
“I don’t want you to go away,” Trish whined, twisting to look at Rivers over the back of the seat.
“We’re going to talk to Grandpa Wilson about what to do. Rivers, what does your dad know about all this?”
“You mean about my problem?” Rivers asked awkwardly. “Uhh. He knows I was teased about it… and he probably… feels the same way Scott does, I dunno. I never really talked to him about it because even just how he responded to me getting teased kinda… scared me, I guess. I don’t want to let him down. He’s done everything to keep the family together and….” Rivers trailed off, struggling.
“Grandpa Wilson is Rivers’ dad?” Trish gaped.
“Yep! Him and Scott are brothers,” Lee said. “So they have the same parents. Grandpa Wilson’s your Grandpa because he’s your dad’s dad.”
“Ohhhhh! I knew that! I just forgot. Mom can I watch Hugo on the tablet?”
“Sure. Rivers, can you get that? It’s in the pocket behind my seat.”
They passed through Toquerville and were on their way to Cedar City, passing fields and fields of sagebrush and juniper before Rivers finally got the movie set up so Trish could hear it. Once they passed through the college town and into the flat, slightly snowy fields of pale yellow grass and scattered blue-grey sage, Lee and Denise reminisced about their families.
“You had a butt-load of siblings didn’t you?” Lee asked.
“Yup. Still do.” Denise flashed a grin at her before changing lanes.
“I remember your little brothers but I don’t remember the older ones much.”
“Well, my oldest brother lives in California and is a web designer. He has five kids already. Went on a mission to Brazil. My oldest sister is a single mom with two kids and one on the way.”
“Ouch… that’s gotta be a tough life.”
“Yeah, and she’s had a really rough life so… she gets depressed a lot. She’s not really in the church anymore. She’s an amazing artist though.”
“That’s really sad. Dang.”
“Yeah. My other older brother does a lot of acting and singing and he draws cartoons. If he and Joshua had been the same age I think they would have gotten along real well, except my brother’s kind of overly flirty sometimes.”
“Maybe I should marry him and then we’d be related,” Lee laughed.
“That means you’d be my sister in law?” Trish asked, piping up from the back.
“Nope, it means I’d be your aunt!”
“Ohhhh okay. I knew that!”
“You remember Taylor?” asked Lee.
“Your sister? Yeah.”
“She’s working at the new Wal-Mart in Hurricane.”
“Oh wow….”
They drifted through topics for a while. They got out at Beaver for a bathroom break and the wind was like knives. They bought some Fritos for the kids and within another fifty miles, Trish was asleep against Lee and Ether had finally stopped singing in the back seat, while Lee furtively nursed Ruth under a blanket.
“Um. Denise?” Rivers’ voice startled her. “If I can figure out where my mom lives, can we go see her?”
“You mean you don’t know where she lives already?”
“Dad never told us where she went, but I think Shasta knows.” Shasta was Scott’s younger brother, one of two siblings between him and Rivers.
“Sure.” Denise adjusted her grip on the steering wheel. “Do you miss her?”
“Yeah.”
They passed a few mile markers and a semi truck. Rivers leaned forward so his head was just behind and to the left of Lee’s.
“If I’m gonna leave you guys I want to know I have a home somewhere. I’ve been fasting and praying for days asking God to tell me what to do and that’s the only thing that I’ve thought of.”
“Are you gonna be okay seeing her? I mean, after all this time, and I thought you were mad at her….”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Lee broke in.
“Did Rivers tell you about his mom?” Denise interrupted.
“Yeah,” said Lee. “We’ve been talking a lot the last couple of days, huh Rivers?”
“Yeah.” Rivers sighed quietly, still leaning forward. The wind made Denise wrestle with the steering wheel. “I feel like an abomination,” Rivers murmured, “but even though this last week has been awful, it’s been really good too. Just being with you two, it’s like I have a home again. You’re both like my mom. I mean, it’s like you’re both moms to me.”
Denise and Lee glanced at each other.
“Well you’re like the little brother or teenage son I’ve never had,” Lee said, grinning.
“Ditto,” said Denise, suddenly anxious again.
“I just want to live with you both and Trish and Ether,” Rivers sighed. “But not Scott. I mean, I would if he wanted me around, but he doesn’t.”
Denise lost herself in the hum of the car for a few minutes.
“We’ll figure something out,” said Lee. “Maybe I can smuggle you home with me and you can just pretend you went back to live with Shasta.”
“I don’t feel right about hiding things from Scott, though,” Denise managed to say. “I told him you were coming, Lee.”
“Oh. What did he say to that?”
“He seemed glad you were ‘moving on with your life.’”
“Hmm.” Lee sighed suddenly.
Denise wasn’t sure if she was imagining that the silence was tense or not. They passed Fillmore with the only noise being Ruth’s gurgling from her car seat.
“Hey Dani,” she said, and there was an unusual timidity to her voice. “Do you think there is something wrong with us?”
“What do you mean?” Denise’s pulse began to throb almost immediately.
“I mean, with us being so close?”
“I don’t know.” Denise felt like asking her to please not bring it up, but she stammered on instead. “I… I don’t… really know anymore, because I didn’t think there was, really, but then Scott said all those things and now I have to wonder if I’ve just been… you know…like… naïve or something.”
“He believes we’re gay for each other or something, right?” Lee grimaced.
Denise laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, something like that.” She tried to focus on the road. It was getting snowier the further north they got.
“You’d think he’d trust us to be able to tell the difference between friendship and romance, right?” Lee kept her tone amused. “It’s not like we want to make out or anything right?”
“Yeah,” Denise said shakily.
“We just are a weird kind of family,” Lee mused. “Do you think that’s what he’s really upset about? Because family is supposed to just be mom, dad, and kids? I heard in a Relief Society class that everybody’s supposed to love God most, then their spouse second, then their kids. So maybe we are wrong.”
“But you still love Joshua most right?”
“I dunno,” Lee confessed simply. “I love you more than anyone else who’s alive, Dani.”
Denise felt her face begin to burn, and then her eyes, and she tried not to panic as the road blurred.
“Well, you and Ruth,” Lee added sheepishly. “And Trish and Ether and Rivers come close. It’s hard to say. You’re all my family. I want you to be there with me in heaven, even though I want Joshua to be there too. I can’t help it. I know you love Scott most and that’s probably how it’s supposed to be, so I don’t mind. But I just can’t help loving you this much. And it doesn’t feel wrong. I prayed about it… you okay? What are we doing?” Lee’s voice suddenly went from warm murmuring to concerned.
Denise finished pulling over to the side of the road and rested her head against the steering wheel, fighting the tears. “Uggghhh I’m so sick of crying,” she groaned.
“Why are you sad?” Lee’s voice sounded hurt. “Did I say something?”
“Denise?” Rivers startled her again with his voice. He handed her some tissues.
“I’m fine,” Denise said, mostly to convince herself. She blew her nose. “Ugh,” she sniffed. “It’s alright for you, Lee, you don’t have anybody else, but Scott’s still with me and I still think… maybe I love you… more than I love him… just as a friend, but my feelings about you are so strong, it doesn’t matter that it’s just like a friend.”
The car was silent except for Trish stirring and mumbling something incomprehensible. Denise turned to look at Rivers who was staring at her with dismay.
“We’re all wrong,” he said shakily. “We all love the wrong people and want the wrong family.”
“But God brought us together for a reason,” Lee said firmly. “I believe that. Why else would he take Joshua home and put you in my life so soon afterward, Dani?”
“Maybe it was just a coincidence,” Denise muttered in despair.
“Don’t say that!” Lee never wavered. “Family’s not just blood, Dani. I mean, kids can be adopted into celestial families, right? We’re not just supposed to have families because ‘that’s just how it’s always been’. At least that’s what Joshua told me. The reason you have to have a family to get to the highest kingdom is because family teaches you how to love and sacrifice for one another and stuff like that!”
“I don’t know if that’s all there is to it,” Denise said hesitantly, even though she wanted to believe it. “Anyway what about Scott? I promised to stay with him forever. It’s not fair to him if I….” She trailed off, scared again by her own thoughts. If I leave him to be with you….
“It’s not your fault he’s not letting you include more people in your family,” said Lee. “What’s the point of being together forever with someone who doesn’t respect you? People make mistakes sometimes, Dani, even in the Church. I’m not saying you chose wrong when you chose Scott as your eternal companion. Maybe you two can still work it out. We don’t have to decide anything yet. But just don’t feel like it all has to be your fault. Family’s more than that.”
Denise was shivering and turned the heater up even though it was technically toasty in the car. “If two women could be eternal companions then the Church would say it’s alright for them to get married.”
“Why does it have to be a marriage thing? Why can’t it just be a family thing?”
“Well then they’d have a sealing ceremony for them.”
“Are you saying that only people you’re sealed to get to be important? What about friends? Aren’t they just as important as a spouse or kids? Aren’t we supposed to love everybody, Dani?”
Denise looked at Lee. Her streaked hair was curling slightly, and in the dim light it reminded her of the old days and the close-cropped dark curls of Lee’s younger self. “You’ve changed so much,” Denise said. “But you probably always had a big heart. I’m just not sure it works that way is all. If we’re supposed to be Gods and Goddesses, there can only be one God and Goddess per universe, right, so you have to run your own separate universe with Josh.”
“I’m sure God can make an exception and let us just share a universe,” Lee laughed.
“This is ridiculous,” Denise sighed. “I can’t believe I’m talking about this. I’m married! I’m not even gay!”
“If it’s not even okay for you and Lee to love each other if you’re not gay, how do you think I feel?” Rivers sounded dejected.
Denise clamped her mouth shut, more tears threatening to embarrass her.
“You’re fine, Rivers. I believe you’re the way God meant you to be. You want to know something?” Lee asked. “And this goes for you too, Danny-boy. I’ve been praying and fasting too, with Rivers. I just broke my fast this morning. I wanted to know if I should move away after all, and let you fix things with Scott. The more I tried to ask God if he wanted me to leave you, the more I felt blank or I had a bad feeling. The more I prayed about staying with you, finding some way to work it out so our families can be together, I felt a warm feeling and some of the strongest joy I’ve ever ever felt.”
“But what if you only felt that way because you’re in-because you love me?” Denise asked desperately.
“Dani!” Lee rolled her eyes and grumbled. “It says right there in the Doctrine and Covenants that that’s how you can tell! If it’s right, you get a burning in the bosom. If it’s wrong, you get a stupor of thought or a bad feeling. If I can’t trust the scriptures, what can I trust?”
“But the scriptures also say only a man a woman and their children can be a family.”
“Well the scriptures also say that with God there is no male or female.”
“I think that part was fixed by the Joseph Smith Translation, or it was just Paul’s opinion or something. And anyway, modern prophets say that the relationship between husband and wife is the most important relationship we have besides our relationship with God and our relationship with our kids.” Denise’s chest felt tight. “Modern revelation overrules old scriptures or at least, uh… is the final word when there’s contradictions.”
“Yeah well modern prophets also say that we should all pray about what they say and get a witness for ourselves that it’s true, and not just follow blindly. Our own revelation is the most important. That’s what Joshua taught me. If we don’t feel right about something then we have to keep praying until we know for sure what God wants us specifically to do! So that’s what I’m doing. What about you? What honestly feels right to you? Does it honestly feel wrong to you, how you feel about me? Because you have to get your own witness. I can’t just say ‘Hey God says we’re meant to be together’ and expect that to be enough.”
Denise groped for more tissues and Rivers gave her the box after taking some to blow his own nose, crying quietly. The whoosh of passing cars reminded Denise that the engine was still running.
“Okay,” she said shakily. “I don’t know, a lot of things feel right. It doesn’t feel wrong to me to love you. It does feel wrong to let Scott control everything, but is that just my own ego talking?”
“Well, just keep praying, and trust your feelings,” Lee said gently.
“Mom, why are you crying?” Trish asked sleepily from where she leaned against Lee.
“I’ll explain later,” Denise said with difficulty. “Lee, you want to drive for a while?”
“Oh.” Lee’s face fell. “Well… I would but… I haven’t driven since Joshua got in the accident….”
“Oh. Alright. It’s fine.” Denise wiped her eyes a few more times, blinked a few dozen, and turned her blinker on, watching for a good space to pull out onto the freeway.
“Mom?” Trish asked.
“Yes honey?” Denise’s voice wobbled as she pulled out jerkily onto the road.
“Are you going to tell me what gay means now?”
There was a long enough pause that Rivers answered first. “It means you want to kiss someone who is the same gender as you. So if you’re a girl and you want to kiss girls, or if you’re a boy and you want to kiss boys, you’re gay.” He cleared his throat to rid his voice of its wavering.
“Oh,” Trish said. “Is it bad?”
Denise and Lee looked helplessly at each other, and Denise saw Rivers’ sad eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“Mom?” Trish tried again when no one replied. “I said, is it bad?”
“Some people think so,” Denise said finally. “A lot of people in the church think so. But I don’t know. It’s not bad to be gay. But I don’t know if it’s bad to for a boy to kiss a boy or a girl to kiss a girl.”
“I think it’s bad to be gay,” Rivers muttered, making Denise’s stomach jump. “Because then you can’t marry the person you want to kiss. Only a man and a woman can get married, Trish. At least in Utah. In some places two boys or two girls can get married. But not a lot of places.”
“That’s d-d-dumb,” Trish yawned, and nuzzled back into Lee’s side, her face pressed between Lee’s shirt and Hugo’s furry side.
It wasn’t until they got to Nephi that Denise managed to stop wondering if she should have said something. “No, Trish, it’s not dumb, because the prophet says only a man and a woman can get married.” Something like that. Something that would have made peace with Scott, if he had been there. But Rivers was in the back seat, and Lee was beside her, and eventually the terrifying phrase I’m in love with you, Lee, faded from her mind as if it never were.
^^^^^
They got to Logan just in time for a late dinner, which seemed like a miracle due to the endless pit stops on the way to change diapers, buy snacks, get gas, find distractions from car sickness, and go to the bathroom. Denise’s dad met her at the door.
“How’s my girl?” He asked in his pleasantly gravelly voice, like the sound of someone’s tires rolling into the driveway when you’ve been missing them all day. His hug was warm, but so was the embrace of her willowy mother. The kids tackled them with hugs, and Denise introduced Lianne and Ruth.
“Oh I remember you!” Denise’s mother cried. “You grew up to be so beautiful! Look at you, your own little girl and everything!”
They seemed to hit it off right away. Lee and Denise’s mother talked happily about the baby, Joshua, and Lee’s conversion to the Church. Denise found herself relaxing in her family’s presence, watching with a kind of cautious happiness as her younger siblings Jacob and Annabelle played with Trish and Ether.
“You been listening to the election results?” her dad asked at dinner. “It’s was looking really good for Romney but Obama pulled ahead about an hour ago.”
Denise suddenly became aware of the TV buzzing with subdued excitement in the background. “Oh wow, I totally forgot today’s Election day.”
“I don’t even want to watch,” her mom said with that gritty undertone of aggravation. “Obama’s going to win and we’re going to lose all our freedoms while he drags the economy into the ground.”
“Don’t give up yet,” her dad said. “There’s still a chance!”
Denise felt a distant queasiness in her stomach. She hated politics, all the name-calling and blaming that went hand in hand with campaigning these days. She didn’t even want to try and form an opinion-the task seemed too daunting in the face of so much hatred on both sides. Still, surely the country would be in better hands with an LDS priesthood holder at the helm than someone who everyone around her criticized for making grand promises and breaking them.
Her wrestling with distant political questions didn’t last long, though. Rivers excused himself to use the internet, and called her in to show her his mom’s Facebook page that Shasta had just given him.
“She’s in a relationship with a woman,” Rivers said under his breath. Denise looked at the photo of two smiling women. It was easy to pick out which was Karen-Rivers and Scott both had her smile. Her relationship status said “In a relationship with Harriet Sandoval”. There wasn’t much else visible on the page, since Rivers wasn’t Facebook friends with her yet.
“Shasta gave me her address. It’s in Washington. She’s in Salt Lake for the holidays though.” Rivers looked at Denise, scared but hopeful. “Maybe she’s visiting her parents.”
“Did Shasta give you her phone number?”
“Yeah.” Rivers chewed his chapped lips and brought up a notepad file with the number on it. “I’m kinda scared to meet her. She’s probably completely different than who I think she is. She probably hates the church and everything.”
Later that night, after Obama had won and Denise’s parents and siblings had groaned and mourned and complained and worried for the future, and Denise had time to herself to worry about her own future, Lee was lying beside her on the air mattress her dad had blown up. Lee had her own bed made up on a hide-a-bed in the living room, but Lee came to say goodnight and laid down next to Denise, who was trying very hard to be comforted by a story in the Bible about an excruciatingly fat man being stabbed by a left-handed assassin.
“Whatcha reading?”
“The most disturbing Bible story ever,” Denise sighed. “I think I’d better just pick some of my favorite verses to read tonight instead.”
Lee squirmed up closer behind Denise so she could see, slinging her arm over Denise’s side and resting her head against Denise’s shoulder. “What’s so disturbing about it?”
“I’d rather not read it out loud,” Denise laughed weakly, and flipped her scriptures shut.
“Sorry for bible-bashing with you earlier,” Lee murmured. “I didn’t mean for it to be an argument.”
Denise stared into Lee’s eyes. She’d never looked at them this close before. “You know you have gold spots in your eyes?” she mumbled sleepily.
“Joshua called them my suns.” Lee grinned. “I told him my eyes are just honey brown. But really, Dani, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset.”
“You didn’t,” Denise said, hoping she wouldn’t get emotional again. “It’s just the situation. I’m so scared of myself lately. I feel like a rug has been pulled out from under me.”
“I’m here to catch you if you’ll let me,” Lee whispered.
“How did I….” Denise took a deep breath. “Somewhere along the line I’ve ended up falling in love with who you are… and I didn’t even realize it.”
“Hm,” went Lee, almost a laugh… a fond laugh. “We’ll be alright, Danny boy.” She kissed Denise’s cheek. “Goodnight.”
^^^^^
Denise couldn’t believe she was doing this.
She had left Ether and Trish with her parents for the day. Now she, Lee, Ruth, and Rivers, were sitting in temple square waiting to meet Rivers’ mother. Scott’s mother. Karen Humboldt, the lesbian.
That morning Denise had taken it upon herself to call Karen’s cell phone. It had taken her nearly ten minutes to stop agonizing over whether she would say something to offend her or possibly end up being traumatized herself if Karen turned out to be some bitter ex-Mormon drunk intent on slandering and blaspheming every sacred figure from here to kingdom come.
“Hi,” she had said to the inquiring voice on the other line. “Is this Karen?”
“Yes? Who’s this?”
“I’m Denise Wilson. I’m married to your son, Scott.”
“Oh.” There was a pause on the other end, during which Denise couldn’t keep herself from wondering if that “oh” was one of shock, disgust, pain, joyful surprise, or something else entirely. “Oh. How’d you get my number?”
“Rivers wanted to get back in touch with you, and Shasta gave him your number. He’s been staying with me and Scott the past month or so.”
“Oh. How is he? Is he okay?”
Denise felt herself start to relax. Karen seemed relatively normal. “He’s been a little depressed actually. He and Scott don’t get along very well these days, because Rivers… er, he has… he thinks he might suffer from same-sex attraction.”
“…And you said he wants to get back in touch with me?”
“Yes. He’s nervous, but he does want to.”
Karen had been surprised to hear that they were in Salt Lake, and even more that they knew she was.
“I came down for a Circling the Wagons Conference.”
“Oh? What kind of conference?”
“It’s for LGBTQ Mormons.”
“Sorry, what?” Denise didn’t understand the acronym.
“Gay Mormons, transgender Mormons, all that fun stuff.”
“Oh. That’s cool. I didn’t realize there were conferences for that.”
The rest of the conversation had gone on in similar awkward politeness as they discussed a meeting time and place. Karen hadn’t seemed a bit hesitant about meeting on temple square.
“Does this mean she’s still a member of the church?” Rivers asked, shivering as they stood by the flat reflective pool across from the granite-grey temple’s front steps. The mirror image of its three spires rippled ever so slightly in the chilly breeze.
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly a face which a moment ago had just been part of the crowd separated and came toward them, and Rivers straightened with a jerk. Lee shifted the bundle of Ruth to her other side, and Denise tentatively lifted a gloved hand. Karen waved back. She wore black ski pants and a dark blue northface jacket, her hair color hidden under a knit hat with ear flaps. She looked better than her Facebook picture, and as she approached Rivers she bit her lip, caught between a smile and a face about to crumple.
“Rivers?” she asked. “Oh my gosh, you’re so tall!”
“Hi mom,” Rivers said faintly, and she hugged him around the middle-she was a little shorter than Denise.
“I’ve missed you so much, it’s so good to see you again!”
“Y-eah,” Rivers said haltingly, hugging her back. Karen held onto him for a moment. Denise noticed another woman standing nearby, smiling, and suddenly she recognized her as the other half of Karen’s profile picture.
Karen pulled away after rocking slightly. “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe this. I’m just so glad to see you.”
Rivers looked cautious, as if he were holding himself back. Karen seemed to notice this and looked over at Denise and Lee. “Hi… which one of you is Denise?”
“That’s me,” Denise said, lifting a hand briefly again. “This is my friend Lianne and her baby Ruth.”
Karen burst out laughing unexpectedly, and Lianne and Denise exchanged an awkward glance.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry-that was rude of me. I just didn’t see the baby for a second, and I thought you meant the candy bar, Baby Ruth!”
Denise and Lee laughed too. Lee said “I didn’t even think of that!”
“Nice to meet you,” Karen chuckled, stealing glances ever few seconds at Rivers. She was fidgety, and turned halfway toward the other woman. “That’s Harriet, my partner. Would you like to meet her?”
“Yeah,” Rivers said thickly, and sniffed, fiddling with a lump of tissues from his coat pocket.
“HARRIET, come over here!”
Harriet’s face broke into a grin. She had long brown hair that was loose under a trendy knit hat with a buckle and a brim. She had fine lines on her face, showing the contrast of her age against the way her dark eyes shone as she came closer.
“Hello Rivers,” she said in a mild and comforting voice. Her movements were smooth and thoughtful to match as she held out a hand to him. “It’s good to finally meet you.”
“Y-yeah, you too,” Rivers grinned awkwardly and shook her hand, holding the tissues to his face with the other one. “Sorry, I’ve got a cold.”
“This is my son Scott’s wife, Denise, and her friend….”
“Lianne,” Lee said, shaking Harriet’s hand. “And this is my Baby Ruth,” she giggled, patting Ruth’s back.
“Baby Ruth,” Harriet said, and chuckled before turning to Karen. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to come over right away or not.”
“Well, I want to do whatever Rivers is most comfortable with,” Karen said, taking another wad of tissues from Rivers to dab under the frameless glasses Denise hadn’t noticed right away. “So, Rivers, do you want to talk alone for a while or should we all stay together…or something else? Whatever you want is fine with me.”
Rivers looked at Denise, asking silently for help, but she just smiled encouragingly at him, and he took a deep breath, eyes flicking between his mother’s sad smile and the majestic grey of the temple.
“Well, um,” Rivers said slowly. “I guess… yeah, can we walk around and talk ju…just you and me?” He sniffed, some hope coming back into his face. “Maybe we can meet up here in an hour or two and just um… decide what to do after that?”
“Sure.” Karen nodded, still seeming caught somewhere between joy and regret. “Denise, you can call me in an hour or I’ll call you if we decide to meet up before then.”
“Sounds good,” Denise said, and with one last encouraging smile at Rivers when he glanced over his shoulder, she watched them walk away under the christmas lights and leafless trees.
“Karen was so nervous on the way over here,” Harriet said serenely. “She kept saying she hopes Rivers will forgive her.”
“We don’t really know the whole story of what the divorce was like,” Lee said hesitantly.
“Yeah,” Denise sighed. “I have to admit that Rivers is probably just as nervous. He’s been told by his dad that Karen never really loved any of them, or believed in the church or anything.” She glanced at Harriet nervously.
Harriet just smiled a little. “Yes, I know. Karen told me all about how it happened. I’m sure you have a lot of questions about that.”
“Well,” Denise said sheepishly. “Uh. Kinda. Yeah.”
“You should know it was never a careless decision for her,” Harriet’s smile faded but didn’t vanish completely. It just became sad. “She agonized over it and even tried to work things out with her husband, but the one thing she couldn’t do was deny the truth of her orientation. And once that truth was out, the damage was done. Her husband and her kids felt lied to, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, that’s what Scott said-that she’s a liar and a fake,” Denise said quietly. “I don’t really want to believe it, but….”
“But?”
“But,” Denise said, amazed at herself for being so bold. “I don’t know why anyone would get married to someone they weren’t attracted to.”
“Heh.” Harriet stuck out her foot and looked at her shoe, first one, and then the other. It was an oddly childish gesture, but it didn’t look silly on her. “Doesn’t the Mormon church teach that God wants everyone to marry someone of the opposite sex in the temple, have children, and so on?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the only way anyone can have a fullness of joy, isn’t it? That’s the words Karen always uses: a fullness of joy.”
“Yeah. That’s the phrase. That’s what we’re taught.”
“Wouldn’t you want to do everything you could to have a fullness of joy? Especially since the Church back then taught that being gay is a choice. If you felt you had a choice, wouldn’t you choose to ignore your feelings for the same sex, try to hold them at bay-” Harriet held out her hands as if pushing something away from her. “And get married, because that’s the only way to be truly happy?”
“Of course. But then why leave?” Denise frowned.
“Because she realized she wasn’t happy after all,” Lee murmured suddenly.
Harriet nodded. “Exactly. If you did everything right but felt like you were living a lie, and you weren’t happy, what then?”
Denise exhaled slowly, her breath misting up to join the clouds. She was shaking inside again, but felt an odd peace beneath it all. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense, doesn’t it. But it sure hurt a lot of people, is all. It’s sad that things turned out that way.”
“Believe me… Karen still regrets that she hurt her family. But it was the original decision to not be true to herself that was a mistake, not her later decision to be honest.”
“But if she hadn’t, my husband would never have been born, and neither would Rivers,” Denise sighed.
Lee grinned. “So some good came out of it after all. Things are coming full circle.”
Denise felt something more than that, even, swelling in her. A gratitude for this conversation that was unrelated to the mere existence of Scott and Rivers but to how she could feel her heart shifting, a burden lifting ever so slightly from it now.
“I just hope he forgives her,” Harriet murmured to herself. “She’s had some very black days contemplating the past. Even a suicide attempt. She’s making peace now, so this is a good time for her to talk to him, if he’ll accept her. That conference we just went to was marvelous. You should check it out sometime. Circling the Wagons. There are so many stories of other people just like her, who are torn up inside because they truly wanted to live their religion. It’s not that Karen didn’t care about the church. It’s that she cared too much.”
Denise stared at the temple spires, imagining Karen in some lonely apartment somewhere, taking pills in shaking hands as she remembered all the betrayal in her husband’s and her children’s eyes. She thought of Scott, and the shaking got worse, but she tried to cling to the peace. It was alright now. Things were working out. God had it under control, for Karen, and for her.
“Sorry, I hope I’m not coming across as preachy,” Harriet mused. “I just thought it was important to understand.”
“No,” Denise said quietly. “No, it’s alright. Thank you. Actually… I really needed to hear that.”
“I’m really grateful you’re reaching out to Karen. It would be nice if Scott would, but I know these things take time.” Harriet’s face held hope-not a passionate or naïve belief, but a quiet steady hope-and Denise found herself admiring her. Maybe time was all it would take after all.
“It’s the least I could do for Rivers. I’m only just beginning to understand how difficult it must be to … feel like an outcast in the Church. I hope they can reconcile.”
“If we stay in contact, you’re all welcome to come to our wedding.” The corner of Harriet’s mouth quirked up.
“Oh. You’re getting marri-I mean… are you getting married or-sorry-”
Harriet looked amused. “Yes. We plan to. Three states just legalized marriage equality. We’ve talked about getting a domestic partnership for a few years, but when we saw Referendum 74 on the ballot, we decided to wait and see if we couldn’t get married for real instead.”
“Oh. Wow! Er, congratulations!” Denise said, feeling a little odd but not nearly as awkward as she would have expected. She honestly felt glad for Harriet and Karen. She had a lot of questions about how that would affect Karen’s relationship with the church, but she decided they could wait.
“Yeah, we’d be honored to come,” said Lee.
They walked around the temple grounds a bit, and when Denise and Lee wanted to go into the visitor’s center, Harriet politely excused herself to go get a cup of coffee, saying they could meet up later.
“Temple square is so pretty,” Lee sighed. “It’s nice to spend another day up here. Me and Joshua came the last two years around Christmas.”
The reverent atmosphere of the visitor’s center settled upon them as they walked slowly past the large paintings of scenes from Christ’s life. Lee paused on the one of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist.
“I have a copy of this one that Joshua gave me on my baptism day,” she said. “I need to dig it out of storage… I love this picture. All the blues and greens.”
They stopped on the painting of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, all dark greens and blacks, eyes upturned to heaven. Denise felt a lump in her throat coming on and was tempted to turn away. But the peaceful atmosphere soothed her enough. Christ had suffered for her precisely because human lives weren’t meant to be neat packages but glorious messes of mistakes and lessons learned. Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy. Karen fell that Scott and Rivers and all of Denise’s life could be as it had been, and somehow buried in that was a promise… they might have joy. And things worked out, somehow. Rivers and Karen were talking, hopefully healing some of the huge rifts in the Wilson family… in her family, however confusing and complicated that family had suddenly become.
As they walked upstairs to the giant white statue of Jesus, and Denise craned her head to see more of the colorful mural of galaxies, stars, and nebulas on the wall and ceiling, Lee began to hum to Ruth. After a moment Denise recognized it and laughed.
“Lee, it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet, and you’re humming Christmas songs!”
Lee grinned. “Sorry, I can’t help it! This place just makes me feel like Christmas.”
“Christmas,” Denise sighed. “I still don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“I’m not going to move. I feel pretty good about staying in Laverkin. I think it’s the right thing for me to do.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Do you think Rivers will live with his mom or go home with you or what?”
“I dunno. I’ll just let him decide, and whatever will be, will be.”
The tune Lee had been humming replayed in her mind, attaching the words.
“In the meadow we can build a snowman,” Denise sang under her breath, grabbing Lee’s hand and tugging her to follow. “And pretend that he is Parson Brown.”
“He’ll say ‘are you married?’ we’ll say ‘No, man! But you can do the job while you’re in town!” Lee grinned as they went downstairs.
“Later on, we’ll conspire!” Denise raised her voice as they headed for the doors.
“As we dream, by the fire!” Lee pulled her around and put a hand on her shoulder. Denise laughed as they danced inexpertly with Ruth snuggled against Lee’s neck, a sad imitation of the waltz, toward the doors.
“To face unafraid… the plans that we’ve made….”
“Walkin’ in a winter wonderland! Oh gosh, I want to build a snowman now!”
“We could build one right now!” Denise suggested, and they went outside to find a patch of deep snow. They took turns rolling their giant snowballs and holding Ruth, and they enlisted the help of some passers-by to hoist the layers on top of one another. By the time Rivers and Karen found them they had some sticks inserted for arms and some rocks for eyes, a leaf for a mouth, and a pinecone for a nose.
“Hey!” Denise said breathlessly as Rivers grinned at her creation. “How’d it go!”
“Good,” Rivers smiled shyly. “I feel a lot better now.”
“Me too,” Karen said quietly, and Denise saw her squeeze his hand.
Later, as they were all sitting in a pizza restaurant somewhere downtown as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Denise thought of Scott and another pang of anxiety hit her. She really didn’t know where she would go from here. But the words of the song replayed in her mind, and she knew things would work out somehow, if she just stayed honest. There was no plan yet, no roadmap laid out in front of her. Just her convictions, and her love for certain people. It was okay.
To face unafraid, the plans that we’ve made, walkin’ in a winter wonderland….